Rhinebeck school principals offer conservative budgets

RHINEBECK, N.Y. —School trustees on Tuesday expressed gratitude to building principals for offering conservative budget proposals, but asked the administrators not to lose sight of long-term goals.

At a Board of Education meeting, officials said the district would be allowed to increase the property tax levy by 2.2 percent over the current year’s $24.23 million levy without exceeding a state cap.

Trustee Diane Kantaros said the proposed building budgets show the administrators are “being very responsible” but said they appear to be limiting creativity by adhering to constraints.

“I almost wanted this to be a really grandiose wish list of if you could have everything, what would you have,” Kantaros said. “Then it would become more of like a visionary thing of not just next year but a three- to five-year projection of where we’d like the school district to go, so that we could all work toward goals.”

Kantaros said residents should be given some credit for understanding when proposals will benefit students.

“Some great idea may take on some initiative of its own and people may support it and people may say we’re willing to increase the budget for that,” she said.